I was also addicted to sex and pornography, but eventually my coke addiction even overtook those cravings.

So when I got saved my life changed in a big way.

Doing and selling drugs were the first to go. It took another year to finally be free from sex addiction.

And if you’re a Christian with a past like mine it’s easy to recognize some of the more obvious tricks of the devil because you know where these “paths” end.

But some Christians who have grown up in the church may be lured away by getting drunk or a little pornography here and there.

They dabble because they’ve never gone “all the way.” So they don’t know how bad it actually gets.

When the Bible talks about the lifecycle of sin and how when it’s “full-grown” it leads to death, you know and I know from experience how true this is!

So instead the devil doesn’t waste his time with these temptations and tries a new strategy.

“I believe that the greatest trick of the devil is not to get us into some sort of evil but rather have us wasting time. This is why the devil tries so hard to get Christians to be religious. If he can sink a man’s mind into habit, he will prevent his heart from engaging God.”

And even if you don’t have a past like mine I still believe the devil works harder to simply have us waste time than to try to get us to commit some atrocious evil act.

He knows he’ll get busted a mile away with that strategy. So it’s more subtle. He’ll get us to waste decades of our life working a job we hate because we’re afraid to make a change.

He’ll get us bickering about stupid things in the church so that we forget to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom and see our cities transformed.

And when all else fails he’ll put little devices in our hands to get us hooked on social media for hours a day, spying on how other people portray to live their lives instead of us actually living our own lives!

Because if he gets us to waste time then it doesn’t matter what we know, believe or stand for. It doesn’t matter how much power and authority we have if we are too busy to ever use it!

This is why I encourage you today to take a step back and ask yourself, “In which areas of my life have I allowed myself to be too busy?”

If you’re not sure if an activity is worthwhile just ask yourself, after you’ve done it, “What if I never did that activity again? Would that be ok?”

A great time to ask yourself this is after spending 20 minutes on Facebook or 15 minutes reading some “horrible thing” in the news.

What if you never logged on to Facebook again?

What if you never watched or read the news again?

Too extreme?

Remember, life is short. Think of all the other things you could be doing with your time and your thoughts. Invest well. You don’t get a do-over at the end.